William J. “Joe” Long, curator of education at the S.C. Confederate Relic Room & Military Museum in Columbia, took attendees on a journey of little-known anecdotes that are Edgefield military related at the Old Edgefield District Genealogical Society meeting Sunday.

Long is a descendant of George Washington Albritton, of the Florida Mounted Rifles in the Second Seminole War. Although Albritton didn’t have an Edgefield connection, he was a part of the war that Long talked much about on Sunday.

Long began his talk with excerpts on the military life of James Taylor, a 16-year-old Edgefieldian who fought in the First Regiment, South Carolina Volunteers, and the battle at Gaines Mill in 1862.

“He was struck in the left arm by a bullet, and although he was probably aware that he would suffer an amputation, shifted the flagpole to his right hip and continued walking across the field. On the second hit, he used the flagpole to pull himself up, but he died from the second wound,” said Long.
“Five teenagers were shot that day.”

Long has met the descendant of one of the flag-bearers of the First Regiment, and learned that he was a U.S. soldier.

“He was not Taylor’s descendent, but the descendent of the sixth flag-bearer that day,” said Long.

Other key Edgefieldians that he discussed included Solomon Hargrove, captain of the Edgefield company of mounted riflemen in the “Florida War” (or the Second Seminole War); Prince Rivers, a black Union war hero; and Matthew Calbraith Butler, a Confederate cavalry general who again became a general for the United States for the Spanish-American War at the end of his career.

Hargrove’s Seminole War journal is an appendix to the Annals of Newberry, the original of which is in the Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina. Rivers was the only man to attempt to prevent the lynching of his comrade in the Confederacy.

 “As war broke out with the Seminoles in the early 19th century, Edgefield was first in line to sign up,” Long said. “One famous person who served was Matthew Calbraith Butler, a cavalry officer.”

Butler’s foot was hit and had to be amputated. He had his foot embalmed and wrapped up and kept for his eventual burial. But that didn’t keep him from enlisting in the Spanish-American War and serving once again.

“My full-time job is to preserve and present our military history,” Long said. “And in my view, a big part of that is making people aware of the unbroken traditions of our soldiers, handed down through the generations.”

Refreshments were enjoyed after the meeting.